Fordham is favored by only 3.
Not good karma for us if NJIT wins this game. Have to root for Fordham here.
Not good karma for us if NJIT wins this game. Have to root for Fordham here.
OT: NJIT at Fordham Tonite
- Thread starter Knightmoves
- Start date
Fordham’s best player (Eric Paschall) is on the Nova roster. Pecora brought in several good players. Hard to keep them in Rose Hill and the Ram’s AD is,let’s just say, not a mensch.
Honor missed a three at the buzzer for the tie. Finished 5-16 from the field with 13 points.
But I thought I heard someone say that youth didn't matter? Aren't true freshmen on other teams always consistently awesome? :rolleyes:
well that puts that narrative to rest as if there was any question about how bad the loss was
NJIT started the week receiving Top 25 votes in the AP poll. And NJIT beat Michigan at Michigan a couple of years ago. The lack of awareness by a lot of fans on basketball shows up a lot.
Everyone plays over their heads a couple of times a year. RU beat Wisconsin under Eddie Jordan when they were highly ranked just a few years ago, when RU was horrific.
Furman won at Nova 3 to 4 weeks ago and it looked like the biggest upset in a decade....4 weeks later, fans at Furman are talking about whether they're going to finish with just 2 or 3 losses for the rest of the season and if they're capable of getting an at large NCAA bid if they somehow didn't win their conference tournament in March.....Furman is 23rd in this weeks Top 25.
One game where a kid shoots lights out means very little in college basketball. It happens and you move on...RU fanbase is so hypersensitive, i think this rebuild is going to be almost impossible to be consistently on message boards over the next 2 to 3 years. When there will be 20 to 25 watershed or statement games, its going to be puzzling to some fans when RU doesn't succeed at each and every game as the stakes get raised along the way.
Everyone plays over their heads a couple of times a year. RU beat Wisconsin under Eddie Jordan when they were highly ranked just a few years ago, when RU was horrific.
Furman won at Nova 3 to 4 weeks ago and it looked like the biggest upset in a decade....4 weeks later, fans at Furman are talking about whether they're going to finish with just 2 or 3 losses for the rest of the season and if they're capable of getting an at large NCAA bid if they somehow didn't win their conference tournament in March.....Furman is 23rd in this weeks Top 25.
One game where a kid shoots lights out means very little in college basketball. It happens and you move on...RU fanbase is so hypersensitive, i think this rebuild is going to be almost impossible to be consistently on message boards over the next 2 to 3 years. When there will be 20 to 25 watershed or statement games, its going to be puzzling to some fans when RU doesn't succeed at each and every game as the stakes get raised along the way.
Thank you Hawk for such a level headed perspective. Well said. It’s become hard to read all the negativity on this board since Saturday. It was a loss no one expected but it happens and we need to move on.
If you play ten games you're 90% likely to win, one time out of ten you're going to be saying "WTF!" And according to KenPom we were only 68% to win at Fordham... despite the fact that teams routinely come into the RAC and win, winning on the road is, in fact, hard.
The issue for me and for most is the way we lost. Problems that had been present all year weren't corrected, they were exacerbated.
The issue for me and for most is the way we lost. Problems that had been present all year weren't corrected, they were exacerbated.
Maybe Honor was motivated by being on TV.
A lot of his shots against us were well defended.
Our failure in that game was on the defensive board and overall hustle.
A lot of his shots against us were well defended.
Our failure in that game was on the defensive board and overall hustle.
I have to admit the recovery process for me from the Fordham loss has been slow and this is not going to help regardless of how much one pumps up NJIT. Yes Honor had what was likely a career game, especially late when he didn't miss, but I did not like a lot of the trends on either end throughout the game. I will be very interested to see how we play on Saturday.
come on Hawk...that NJIT vote looks like it was some kind of joke by a poster, they received a vote just 8 days after losing to UMass Lowel by 23 points. NJIT is not a good team and neither is Fordham.
Upsets happen but people have every right to get upset about them. You downplayed losses to Stony/Hartford last year but those were the kind of losses that kept RU from that elusive 500 mark and its a loss to Fordham that could keep the 500 mark out of range this year. It is important for the program to end that sub 500 jinx sooner than later. Long run the program is alright with Pikiell but I do not know how any fan could not be disappointed with the Saturday effort. Sure Honor was hot but the rest of the team??? It was just bad basketball on RU's part.
i was at their game on the weekend, great place to take the kids to watch a decent mid major game from the front row for $10
i might take Zach Cooks over couple RU players. he's fun to watch, dripping with swag.
Abdul Lewis is quality big man as well. disciplined. will bang down low hard. passes the ball extremely well in their back door offense.
Last edited:
There was an Abdul Lewis thread back in October. Good player ...
https://rutgers.forums.rivals.com/threads/ot-njit’s-abdul-lewis.152997/
You can schedule your way to close to .500 and people would complain, just like last year....we were 1 or 2 games away in the other direction from being .500 with a terrible OOC that many complained about as being soft.
This years slate is tougher and the team doesn't define itself by beating Stony Brook or Hartford if you have no substance behind it with play against better competition.
The league overall is clearly better across the board from 2 years ago and last year. Most national people would agree that last year was an unusual year for the B1G.
We may improve over 20 league games and not see significant improvement in wins and losses overall. The question is validated to me by Fordham playing a sharp 2nd half and outhustled RU in key spots.
Here's what happens every March...bac puts out as extensive a review of every potential bubble team. And every single bubble team has at least 2 to 3 WTF games that ultimately doesn't make sense OR would keep an argument going for why they shouldn't be in the NCAA discussions mixed with 3 to 5 quality wins.
It makes no sense to have 50 reviews of teams and act as if none of the 50 reviews dont have games that jump off the page as bad losses. It's not realistic to have a clean resume.
There are dozens of teams that already have these losses already on their resume in some aspect. Whether it's a bad loss or blown opportunities to move themselves up towards being an NIT or NCAA contender by not winning a key home game etc.
I would use an example of Iowa having a strong start to the season, beating ranked UConn and Oregon at MSG. Neither Oregon or UConn are currently ranked today, but Iowa remains ranked.
Iowa could have really made the statement by closing out Wisconsin at home, the same night we lost to Michigan State. I think Wisconsin is a tourney team and a home win over Wisconsin would have been a quality league win.
Iowa didn't come through late....maybe by February the Oregon and UConn wins will really matter more or won't look as great. Beating Wisconsin mixed with those 2 wins on a neutral court may have made a difference.
2 weeks ago Miami got blown out at Penn and then Villanova loses to Penn last night in a road game. Suddenly the team that made the NCAAS last year in Penn, starts to get more respect. Maybe RU and SHU beating Miami means a lot right now or turns out to be Miami isnt as good as we figured.
The beauty of the process for me, is RU is going to play the best competition most nights to strengthen the program. Over 30 games, we truly find out how much further we have to go. Fordham means very little IMO in the larger scheme of things, beating Miami on the road means more IMO.
The overreactions for college basketball fans is fun, if it's mixed with knowledge of the landscape on a national level. I think RU fans revel in creating narratives about trivial items, making them bigger than they actually are....and when they happen elsewhere, they're viewed as speedbumps, here, their blown out of proportion.
Well said, Hawk.
The Fordham loss was awfully disappointing. Was it devastating? Far from it.
Winning matters at most schools yet at Rutgers fans are constantly discussing the reasons why it doesn't happen and trying to deflect criticism.Its not by accident that losing seasons have occurred for over a decade with different coaching staffs and players.What has been lacking all along is a sense of urgency to win and establishing accountability for players, coaching staffs and athletic department administrators to change the status quo.
The Miami win looked like a signature win until Miami lost at home to Yale and got hammered at Penn.
The Fordham loss now stands alone as a bad loss.
The Fordham loss now stands alone as a bad loss.
I’m not sure what’s more tiring, the excuses or the shifting of blame.
Fordham was a bad loss. Coming off the strong efforts against Mich State and Wisky. We should blow them out. But we came out listless and paid for it. Give me a W against SHU and I'm back.
As of today (Dec. 12, 2018), Sagarin ratings has this pecking order, despite Miami losing to Rutgers, Yale, and Penn: 5-4 Miami at #60, 5-4 Rutgers at #84, 5-3 Yale at #92, and 8-2 Penn at #94. Sagarin has 6-3 Fordham at #229. Yes, Fordham is a brutal loss; Sagarin has us beating Fordham by 11 points at a neutral site.
I am not judging the season by that game...I am calling it out as a bad loss...the sooner we get rid of bad losses and turn the corner the better. RU doesnt have the luxury of other programs where they can have a few bad losses. The last two decades of futility speaks for themselves. To get fans on board..not talking about the same 2-3K that have been going for the past few decades, you have to win games. This year isnt the year to expect win over NCAA programs, thats next year. RU has no margin of error when it comes to record because this year there is probably a ceiling to what they can do. Finishing 7-3 non conference is okay..most predicted it, but the highlight of beating Miami is directly negated by losing to Fordham. You cannot give props to the team when they win and excuse a hideous non conference loss..because I see alot of spinning in your posts. Its really doesnt require spinning. Its just a very bad loss that the team can recover from by playing better later in the season but i am not buying spin about Fordham or NJIT being quality opponents, they are trash
Pike didn't schedule the Fordham game...it was a carry over from the previous administration.
Agree, it was a bad loss—not only from a pure hoops perspective but a “battered fanbase syndrome” perspective. It doesn’t take much to turn around the base of a program with our history.
Boo to Julie on that one..we shouldn't be playing at their high school gym..
Don't mind road games but there really isn't a positive to playing Fordham on the road
No one said it wasn't a bad loss...my issue is acting like no one has them or it will or shouldn't happen ever again....as the program gets better, games that are further up the food chain will be deemed bad losses.
I don't know how good UMass is or isn't but we play at UMass next year. I know UMass is in the A10 and better than Fordham but a game next year against UMass will be more of the same stuff if things don't go RU's way.
Then it will be losing at Penn State or Northwestern or whatever program we would have "passed by" as we get better. We are not going to schedule strange and rare games like Fordham, but they're going learning curves for the program.
I would be on board with bad loss if there's no counter to it. A big road win, like Miami is suddenly less credible because fans are ignorant to the Top 3 or 4 teams in the Ivy League being capable of winning against a Miami or program that is retooling like Villanova.
There's nothing bigger in my mind than playing quality basketball on the road against a name opponent. Doesn't mean you have to win all of them to show improvement. RU is more competitive than not right now. That doesn't mean all road games will be tight, there will be probably 3 to 5 headaches that don't make sense.
No one is making excuses....I just want factual information not whiny fans acting entitled when things don't go their way. RU isn't the only NCAA team that didn't play a complete game on the road or win when expected to.
My guess would be what's the story for B1G teams visiting the RAC this year that don't win, because RU plays well. Do those teams immediately deem it unacceptable and fire their coach like Illinois did to John Groce...a loss that took whatever bubble thoughts away from the Illini...?? A couple of years later after tons of roster turnover and a bad year by Illinois, are they any better because they fired their coach or better or still the same??
I'm all for raising expectations when they're warranted...but i would read other teams message boards when their team doesn't win when it's favored to do so....doesn't matter what program, it's all based on unrealistic expectations or probably disgruntled sports bettors who lost and take it out on twitter or message boards.
A freakin men. We represent the big 10, play a game with a bunch of RU fans there, making a potential statement in our back yard...against a go hum team. Rutgers bball is back!" Yeah well, um. No. Needed that to stop the 3 now potential 4 loss in a row thing.
Lets hope we make a huge jump and beat the hall. That makes the Fordham loss irrealavant. Not whatv others do. Those schools who have made a tourney in say sometime over the last quarter century.
bac- once again a spot on assessment of where Rutgers stands after 9 games.Sadly, the excuse game will continue for the remainder of the season .
